Partners
by naomi-chan
Summary: Naruto and Ino become partners in a mission after which they start spending alot of time with each other. Sakura sees this and realizes feelings for Naruto she never knew she had. Will she tell him her feelings or risk losing her partner forever? NXS
1. Prologue: I'm getting paired up with who

Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto and not me unfortunately -pouts-

I hope you all like this fic. I know this chapter is really short, but please bear with me as it's only the prologue. The chapters coming will be way longer than this, I promise.

'...' means thinking. Enjoy :)

* * *

Naruto made his way to the hokage tower. 'Baa-chan wants me to do another mission... it had better be interesting this time, last time she had me lead old blind people back to the village hidden in the grass and the time before that, she had me look for some spoiled rich girl's cat. You'd think since I've come back from training with Ero-sennin that she'd give me better missions. She's just making fun of me 'cause I'm still a genin but I'm probably already at jounin level or even higher. Stupid titles...' he frowned and shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. 

The blonde-haired boy barged into her office without knocking. "Oi, Baa-chan!! I'm here. You'd better have a good mission for me this time."

The godaime stood up and slammed her hands on her desk. "Don't mess with me, boy," she growled.

At that moment, there was a knocking at her door. "Come in," she said, still glaring at Naruto.

The door opened and Ino walked in. "Good morning, Hokage-sama," she said. "Oh, hey, Naruto," she added. "Hey," he responded and then put his hands behind his head.

"Good morning, Ino," Tsunade said as she sat back into her seat. "Well I'm sure you two have by now figured out that you will be working together on this mission."

The two adolescents looked at each other in shock and then turned back to Tsunade. "But how come I'm working with Ino?" Naruto asked, confusion written all over his face. "I always work with Sakura-chan."

She sighed. "I know you're a little slow on the uptake but please try to keep up. Sakura is already on a mission right now and besides, you and Ino are the perfect team for this mission. I'm only sending you two because it will cause suspicion on their part if more than the two of you are in their village. Now here's what's going down and don't you dare interrupt me again, Naruto," she glared at him again for good measure.

He responded by a sweatdrop forming on his head.

The leaf village sannin folded her hands and started. "As you two are already aware, there has been brewing disturbances between our village and the village hidden in the rain. Judging by the way things are going, we may head into war soon. This is where you two come in. I need you to go to the village hidden in the rain and obtain the layout of their village's secret hideouts and meeting spots. This information would be key in helping us if we do end up fighting them. This document will be in the amekage's office.

"The objective is to go through this mission by attracting as little attention as possible. They are not to know that there are Konoha spies in their village. Needless to say, you will not be wearing your Konoha forehead protectors. If a few ninja see you be prepared to take them out, but if you risk exposure to a large amount of ninja, abort the mission and head back. When you reach the amekage tower, you'll have to clone one of the amekage's officials Naruto and when you get the chance, Ino, take over the amekage's mind to find the documents. You will copy the document and replace it, I have special paper for you here. After you two have done that, I want you two to leave the village as quickly and carefully as you can. Of course, I expect you two to use your abilities to your full advantage. It constantly rains over there so be careful. You two are to set out tomorrow at 6 AM. I advise that you travel light. Any questions?"

They silently shook their heads.

"Good." She rummaged in her drawer and took out two a general map of the rain village, rain village forehead protectors and a piece of paper. "This is a special kind of paper; it will copy the ink of a document when you apply them together. It's something I created," she added with a pleased smirk.

"Impressive," the young kunoichi breathed in awe.

"You sure that will even work?" Naruto mumbled under his breath.

Tsunade glared daggers at him. "What did you say?"

He laughed and rubbed the back of his head. "I said umm what a fine piece of work."

Ino looked back and forth at the two. They had an interesting relationship.

She relaxed back into her chair. "I thought so. Now this is a B rank mission I'm giving you two, so obviously I have a lot of faith in you. Don't mess this up."

"We won't, Hokage-sama," Ino said as she and Naruto received the items.

"Good luck you two," she said as they turned to leave her office.

"Oh, and Ino," Tsunade added, "as annoying as Naruto is, I expect you to heal him if he gets hurt."

"Sure thing, Hokage-sama," she answered with a giggle.

Naruto walked out of the office. "Hahaha whatever."

Ino ran to catch up with him. "Naruto, you hear that? Try not to be your loud annoying self on this mission so we can be able to get things done."

"Well, it's not like I wanted to be partnered with you anyway. I would much rather be with the lovely Sakura-chan."

"Well, I didn't ask to be partnered with you either."

"Yeah yeah," he said.

"See you tomorrow at six, don't forget!" Ino said as she walked toward her house.

"See ya," he waved while walking away.

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Plz review if ya like 


	2. Time to set off!

Hey everyone, I'm so sorry for the delay, but I usually release a chapter when the following chapter is almost finished or when I at least have a good idea of how its going to play out. When I had started this one, I hadn't really started this chapter and I suffered a bout of that infamous writer's block. Darn it, writer's block, you have continued to foil me but I will have my revenge!! Anyway, thank you all so much for your wonderful and inspiring reviews, without them I wouldn't have been able to get through this story, let alone this chap :)

Before I start, there's an important issue that I need to address. Well, actually two. First off, I thought that since there will be the whole Sakura/Naruto/Ino conflict, it would be interesting to have a Naruto/Ino/Shikamaru conflict. We'll see how he reacts to the newfound relationship between Naruto and Ino heh heh. It should be interesting. An other issue I want to discuss is some of you were concerned about Sasuke's involvement in this story, and in all honesty, I shouldn't have had Ino mention him because first of all, he will not be in this story in any way whatsoever, and two, you guys were right, Ino really did get over him after the timeskip. So, my apologies. I'll probably try to fix that when I get the chance later. Once again, thanks so much for the reviews and please don't hesitate to give me feedback on this chap.

'...' means thinking. Enjoy :)

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(The next morning...) 

Naruto was standing by the village gates, waiting for Ino. 'Hmph. She tells me to be early and now she's holding everything up. It's already five minutes after six'

Two minutes later, Naruto sees her approach, running towards him.

The exhausted kunoichi stopped and leaned on her knees to catch her breath. "Man, I hate having to start missions so early in the morning. I didn't have the chance to get my beauty sleep and what's worse, I wasn't able to eat anything because I had to rush over here!"

"What's more important to that girl? Her looks or her job as a shinobi?" he muttered to himself.

Ino immediately straightened up and gave Naruto a death glare. "What did you say?" she growled while shaking her fist, looking incredibly scary.

He sweatdropped. "What? I didn't say anything." He turned away from Ino and sighed. 'Testy, testy. I'll have to get her something to eat, and soon'

"Come on, Naruto, we're already behind schedule," she said cooly as she was already walking through the gate while showing her pass to the guards.

Naruto looked at her and face faulted. 'What the heck was that about?! She was the one holding us back!'

"Grr..." he showed the guards his pass and followed behind Ino.

--------

Later on that afternoon...

Tsunade stacked up the papers in front of her into a neat pile and put them to the right. She then looked at the bigger stack of papers on her left, awaiting review. The godaime sighed and took a small pile from the mountain on her left and placed it in front of her.

'Its like this paperwork will never end' She sighed again and put her head in her hands. 'I've been working all day and it looks like there's even more than earlier' Truth was, she was sleeping on it for most of the morning, and only got to working on it for the past half-hour.

"I know what will make this more interesting," she sang as she bent down and reached in her bottom drawer and took out a bottle of sake.

She hugged the bottle to her chest. "Oh sake, my beloved, what would I do without you?" She started to chug it down happily when someone knocked on her office door.

She was so startled she started to choke on the alcohol. She gagged for a few moments and then quickly put the drink away and regained her composure. "Come in."

The door opened and Shizune walked in with Sakura trailing behind.

"Good afternoon, Tsunade-sama. How is the paperwork going?"

"Daunting as usual," she glanced over at Sakura, who tiredly flopped onto the sofa. "So how'd the surgery go?"

"It went wonderfully," Shizune answered happily. "Soon, she won't need my supervision anymore. She was able to reconnect the chakra points to the patient successfully."

"That's good to hear." She looked over at Sakura proudly. 'Its important that she improves on her medical ninjutsu skills at this crucial time. These A-rank surgical missions I have her doing has been going really well so far. This girl is most certainly gifted. Perhaps I should look into nominating her to become a jounin in the near future'

"I appreciate you working overtime to cover my duties, Shizune," she added. Shizune looked quite tired as well.

"It's no problem, Tsunade-sama. I'm glad to help," she replied while stifling a yawn.

"I would much rather be tending to my patients, but unfortunately, my duties as hokage come first," she looked warily at the pile of papers beside her, which she could have sworn had just gotten bigger in the past five minutes. "The conflict between us and the rain village is rising and I must make preparations in case we have to go to war. There's just so much to be done. Oh yeah, that reminds me, Sakura, I sent Naruto and Ino on a mission to retrieve the hideout map from the rain village, so you won't see them for awhile."

All of a sudden, Sakura wasn't so sleepy anymore. "You sent Naruto and Ino on a mission to the rain village?"

"Yes, I did," the voluptuous sennin responded. "Is there anything wrong with that?"

"Oh," the medic kunoichi looked down at the hem of her skirt. "No, there's nothing wrong with that." She stood up. "I'll be going now; have a nice day, Tsunade-shishou, Shizune-sama."

"Okay, see you tomorrow, Sakura," the medic jounin called as the girl left the office.

Tsunade watched her leave and looked questioningly over at Shizune. "Was it something I said?"

"Don't worry, Tsunade-sama, I'm sure you didn't mean it," she said, trying to sustain a giggle.

---------

Sakura walked home slowly, for some reason very interested in the little pebbles on the ground. 'Naruto and Ino... on a mission together, alone?' She tried to shake off those feelings and let out a frustrated sigh. 'What do I care if they're on a mission together? It's not like I care about that sort of thing anyway. I'm sure Tsunade-shishou had her reasons for sending those two; besides, I have more important things to think about. Tomorrow I have to perform an organ transplant surgery and I have to review on it. Tsunade-shishou is counting on me to do well, I won't let her or Shizune-sama down'

She went into her house and looked around. "Mom?" she called.

No answer.

"Hmm, I guess she's not home." She walked into the kitchen and took out some cookies and poured out a cup of milk, not caring about the diet she was supposed (but really didn't need) to be on at the moment. She went up to her room and took out her medical ninjustu books. She flipped to the chapter about performing organ transplant surgeries using chakra and started to read. Those nagging thoughts about Naruto and Ino however, came back and she had trouble concentrating after that. "Damn, I can't concentrate," she muttered, irritated. She spent another five minutes fruitlessly trying to study the material and then closed the book with a frustrated sigh. "I probably can't focus because I'm tired; after I take a nap I should be okay." But when she tried to take a nap, she surprisingly had trouble falling asleep.

--------

"Here I come! Meat Tank!" Chouji yelled as he came speeding toward Shikamaru.

The lazy shinobi braced himself and did some hand signs. "Kage Mane no jutsu!" His shadow sped to catch up with Chouji's, but it could barely reach him. 'Damn, he's gotten so fast' he thought as he accelerated the speed of his jutsu to capture the overweight shinobi.

Chouji chuckled and accelerated his spins to move faster. 'Crap,' Shikamaru thought as he jumped out of the way, barely missing his best friend's attack. 'He's coming at me from an angle where there are hardly any shadows so it will take longer for me to capture him' He kept jumping back and took out some kunai from his pouch and threw them at him.

Asuma watched Chouji and Shikamaru spar with pride. 'Those two have come such a long way. So has Ino. I never thought I would be so proud of those three'

Chouji smirked as he evaded the kunai. 'He's going to have to do better than that. That won't slow me down' He all of a sudden couldn't move. 'What the... how could Shikamaru have gotten me?' he wondered. 'I made sure there were no shadows near where I was'

"Heh. Looks like I got you Chouji," he said with a smirk. After releasing his shadow from Chouji, he continued. "You were too fast for me, and yeah, you did make sure to keep away from the shadows, but I didn't throw those kunai at you and miss for nothing." He pointed along the path of kunai knives lined up one behind the other leading to the shadows and then one in front of himself. "The kunai were able to connect the shadows toward you and since you were coming at me they all lined up perfectly."

Chouji laughed and shook his head. "I should have remembered that you do nothing without a purpose. I'll be sure to get you next time."

"Good job boys, but I think it's time we took a break," Asuma interjected, looking at his watch. "It's already lunch time."

"Woohoo!! Lunch time! I'm starved!" the young Akimichi exclaimed. Shikamaru and Asuma looked at each other nervously.

"So... uh who's turn is it to pay for lunch again?" Asuma asked Shikamaru.

"I recall it being Ino's turn to pay for lunch, and she's conveniently not here," the cloud-gazer grumbled while shoving his hands into his pokets.

The jounin's face lit up in enlightenment. "Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you. Ino won't be with us for a few days. The godaime sent her and Naruto on a mission to gather information on the rain village."

"What?" Shikamaru asked in surprise. "Why would she send those two on a recon mission?"

He closed his eyes and crossed his arms. "I don't know, I think they would work pretty well together, and besides, I think Tsunade-sama knows what she's doing." He opened one eye and looked at him. "What's wrong? You have a problem with that?"

At this, a light blush spread across his cheeks. "Of course I don't," he responded defiantly. "It's just that those two are pretty loud and impulsive, especially Naruto. I didn't think that they would do well on a mission where they had to just lay low and gather information, that's all."

"I see." Asuma chuckled to himself. He liked getting Shikamaru flustered over Ino. The boy would never admit it, but he knew that he had a huge crush on her. "Well, you'll have to take it up with the hokage, I'm afraid," he said while stretching.

Shikamaru continued to glare at Asuma. That man could be so troublesome sometimes.

"So guys? When are we gonna go eat?" Chouji interrupted their thoughts.

Asuma's smirk and Shikamaru's glare changed back to apprehension as they contemplated the huge bill one of them was going to have to pay.

"So how do we settle this?" Shikamaru asked Asuma.

His former sensei put a finger to his chin and thought. "Well I guess we could settle it with a competition of sorts."

"I know," Shikamaru said with a smirk, "we can settle this with a game of shougi."

Now it was Asuma's turn to glare at the boy. "You must think I'm stupid. No, we're doing something where the playing field will be even."

"Oh come on," he said to Asuma. "you're pretty good at shougi. You'll have a good chance."

"Yeah, against anyone but you." Asuma continued, "I got it, we'll play janken to decide. Best two out of three wins."

"Fine," the boy sighed. "You're on."

The two got into fighting stances and had determined looks on their faces. They drew out their right hands and it was like slow motion as they pumped their hands three times, each hoping they would get that lucky draw.

Chouji watched them while laughing to himself. 'Hehe. Those guys are too easy. They could have just decided that we all pay for our own food and then I would have to handle my own bill. But oh well, this works perfectly fine.'

Their hands opened simultaneously to reveal their moves. Asuma had rock, and Shikamaru had paper.

'Damn,' Asuma thought to himself while wiping a bead of sweat off his forehead. 'I can't let him beat me; by the time Chouji's full, I'll have no money left' He shook his head from that thought. 'I can't let this get to me. I've just got to be calm...' He took a deep breath and prepared for the next round.

"What's wrong, Asuma? Had enough?" Shikamaru asked tauntingly.

"Don't count me out yet, I'm just getting started," he replied as they had another round of janken.

This time Shikamaru had chosen scissors and Asuma had once again chosen rock.

'Crap,' Shikamaru thought to himself. 'I didn't think he'd choose rock again. I gotta get it together, I can't afford to lose this one'

"Last shot," Asuma said with a grin.

"Don't get too cocky, old man," he responded.

They prepared to have their final shot of janken. Chouji spoke up in an announcer voice, talking into his fist as if it were a microphone, "The score is now one each. They have only one round left. Who will win? Will it be-"

"Shut up!!!" The two yelled at him in unison. They then got back to their janken match.

"Sheesh, well excuse me for trying to lighten the mood," Chouji muttered in an offended tone.

Shikamaru studied Asuma, trying to predict his next move. 'Hmm... since Asuma used rock twice he's probably thinking that I'm thinking that he'll use it again. So then he would expect me to use paper to cover the rock this time, and he would use scissors to cut my paper. Heh'

Their hands opened and Shikamaru had rock, and Asuma had scissors.

"Damn it," he quietly cursed as Shikamaru smirked at him again. "I win."

He then put his hand on Chouji's shoulder as they walked off to the BBQ restaurant. "Well, now that we're done with that, let's go have some lunch, shall we?" He looked over his shoulder. "Come on, Asuma. Our boy's hungry over here."

The defeated jounin let out a big sigh, and followed the boys to the restaurant.

--------

Naruto and Ino walked down the countryside trail. "So... hungry... need... ramen..." Naruto groaned, hunched over. Ino looked around. "We haven't passed by a food vendor for miles and we haven't eaten since early this morning," her stomach growled in protest. She groaned as well and then looked up. She saw a sign a couple of yards away. She ran up to it and read it.

"Hey Naruto, according to the sign we're two miles from the nearest town!" She looked over at him and smiled. "You know what that means."

"Yeah!" the hyperactive shinobi exclaimed, all of a sudden having newfound energy. "There's got to be food there!"

The platinum blonde pulled the map out from her bag and looked it over. "Get this; this town is in western fire country so that means we'll reach rain country before nightfall. Hmm..." she put a finger to her chin in thought. "we should probably wait until morning to do the mission, its best not to do things in unknown territory at night-"

"We can worry about that later, Ino, come on!" Naruto was already almost out of her view.

"Okay, coming!" She shook her head and laughed and ran off to catch up with Naruto.

--------

Shikamaru stared out of the window, characteristically gazing at the clouds, lost in thought. 'I don't know why the hokage sent Ino and Naruto to do this mission, they don't even know how to work together. They've never been partners before in any mission, what if he dosen't know that Ino is at her most vulnerable state while performing her mind transfer justu? If she dies in the host's body, then her spirit dies as well...' He didn't notice Asuma glaring at him.

"Are you gonna eat that, or do you enjoy seeing my money go down the drain?" he said through gritted teeth, still angry that he lost the game and ended up having to charge the bill to his credit, thus plunging himself into further debt.

Shikamaru looked over and blinked at Asuma in mild surprise, being broken from his train of thought, and looked down at the food in his plate. He hadn't really eaten anything; he was just pushing the food around with his chopsticks.

"I'm sorry, Asuma. I guess I'm not really hungry right now."

Chouji stopped eating and looked over at him. "I'll be happy to take all that food off your hands," he offered.

"Sure."

That was all Chouji needed to hear. He piled the food onto his own plate and continued eating.

At that, Shikamaru turned back to the window.

Asuma watched him out the corner of his eye. 'It seems he's still worried about Ino,' he thought.

Shikamaru watched one particularly fat cloud lazily float by. 'The hokage should have sent Naruto and Sakura together; they're already partners and they work well together,' he sighed. 'The hokage should have had me go with Ino on this mission. Long traveling isn't really my thing and it would be a pain but it would've been better that way...' He unknowingly clenched his fists so tight that the chopsticks he was still holding broke in half. 'If Naruto lets anything happen to Ino, I'll kill him.'

--------

"Achoo!" Naruto took a napkin and wiped his nose.

Ino looked over at him in concern. "Don't tell me you're coming down with a cold, you can't afford to get sick now."

He sniffed. "I think I'm okay. That sneeze came out of nowhere though." Naruto, being the blissfully clueless guy he was didn't think anything of it. He instead picked up his chopsticks and continued to eat. "Oh barbecued pork ramen, so delicious... dare I say it... this is better than the one at Ichiraku's!"

Ino murmured in agreement. "So true," she agreed as she happily slurped up the noodles. "This is my favorite kind of ramen."

Naruto looked at her and smiled. "This is my favorite too!"

Ino looked over at him. "Not surprising though, since this is the best, right?"

Naruto finished the last in his bowl. "Can't argue with that logic."

They then finished and ordered more of the coveted meal.

The owner and his wife smiled at their favorite customers of the day, who had stumbled in and had already eaten three orders each of the most expensive meal on the menu. Unfortunately for the two adolescents, they did not notice the evil glint in the eyes of the husband and wife when they smiled at each other.

'Fools,' the husband thought to himself.

'We will be able to have enough for that vacation we always wanted by the time we're through with them,' the wife thought with glee.

Ino and Naruto cleaned their bowls, put down their chopsticks and leaned back with pure satisfaction.

"Heavenly," Ino sighed.

Naruto let out a loud belch in reply.

"Naruto, that's disgusting!" Ino scolded, "You should really-buuuuuuurrrrrrrp." A deep blush spread across her cheeks. "Excuse me," she muttered.

"Can we help you with anything else?" The owner's wife asked them.

"Nope, we're good," Naruto responded happily.

"Okay then," the wife wrote on a piece of paper and gave it to Naruto. "Here is your bill."

Naruto took one look at the bill and nearly fainted. So it cost this much to have a good meal around here. Ino looked at it and screamed, "What?!! That much? You have _got_ to be kidding me!!!"

"Heh heh heh heh" The husband and wife duo loomed over the two, rubbing their hands together greedily.

"Something tells me we've just been fooled, big time," Naruto sniffed with rivers of tears flowing down his cheeks as his happily stuffed toad wallet turned into a sad nearly anorexic-looking one.

* * *

(Note: Just in case you didn't know, janken is japanese for the rock paper scissors game) 

Looks like Sakura and Shikamaru are worried already. Some crazy things are going to happen to Naruto and Ino on their mission, find out what happens next chapter. Hope you enjoyed, plz review :)


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